


love is blind (it will take over your mind)

by babygrxxt



Category: Larry Stylinson - Fandom, One Direction
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Angst, M/M, Manipulation, Oneshot, offensive terms/language, self hate, some fluff i suppose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-20
Updated: 2014-09-20
Packaged: 2018-02-12 10:57:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2107245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babygrxxt/pseuds/babygrxxt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a story in which louis moved to paris to get away and is now working a nine to five job he hates, niall can’t speak french, zayn is so far gone for a boy he doesn’t even know and the pink of harry’s lips stands out even more against the purple of a bruise</p>
            </blockquote>





	love is blind (it will take over your mind)

He knew he was fucked when he heard birds chirping outside his bedroom window and realised that he’d lain awake, staring at the ceiling, for the entire goddamn night.

The irritating thing was he _used_ to be able to sleep. He used to be able to breathe easily, as well. He used to be able to speak without considering ways in which to bring each and every conversation back to Harry fucking Styles. And he used to be able to look at himself in the mirror without self loathing creeping into his veins, masked only by a thin veil of guilt. So yes, Louis Tomlinson had been better, but no, he was not going to return to Doncaster and admit to his smug little sisters and his asshole of a best friend that he’d failed in his mission to escape. That was one thing he was sure of.

Since he’d moved to Paris early the previous year, Louis had gotten into a routine with the only other English speaker in his apartment block in which they would wake each other up, refusing to rely on social constructs such as an _alarm clock_. Unfortunately, even Zayn Malik wasn’t speaking to him now, and he supposed he deserved the silence.

Louis Tomlinson was, in the lightest of terms, the biggest prick ever to have graced the magnificent country of France. Hell, he was pretty sure he was the dick of Europe. Ever since he’d been little, he’d had one talent and one talent only; attracting trouble. He wasn’t particularly good in school, and whilst he could kick a ball around a field pretty accurately he lacked – how do you say – social skills in order to properly communicate with his team-mates. Apparently calling the captain of the football team “an overconfident, pretentious douche-bag who cares about nothing but his own self importance” his first day on the field wasn’t the best thing to do.

After that, Louis had been reserved to ‘weirdo’ by the majority of his high school, liked only by the boy who he was confident loved everyone; Niall Horan. The boys were hitherto dubbed the Dream Team, and they were known for their carefully constructed senior pranks. Everybody knew, of course, who let chickens out in the canteen and why Mr Fredrickson (the school principal) had sprained his leg due to a faulty chair, but the one good thing about teenagers was their lack of a moral compass. As the innocent, balding man was carted away in an ambulance every student at Doncaster High miraculously became mute, refusing to speak to a member of authority unless accompanied by a lawyer. So, the mystery (in the teachers’ eyes) of the principal’s injury and imminent retirement from the school remained unsolved, and Louis intended to keep it that way.

It had occurred to him before, of course, that there would come a time in which his pranks would cross a metaphorical line. He considered the loss of a man’s career, livelihood and short-term mobility to be enough incentive to get the hell out of England, which just so happened to be the one place he’d detested for as long as he’d lived in. His mother had cried and begged to know who he was going to meet (“Why can’t I spontaneously run away to Paris with no explanation whatsoever without being questioned?”) but his sisters seemed to understand, in their own young way. They had seen the detention slips and the suspension, the failed examinations and the way that Doncaster High students looked upon Louis when they had the misfortune of meeting outside of the educational establishment. They knew, as well as Louis himself did perhaps, that he belonged in the place he had called home for eighteen years as much as a fish did out of water. Lottie, however, remained convinced that Louis wouldn’t last eighteen months in the City of Lights.

‘Ha-ha,’ he thought to himself, somewhat vindictively. ‘I have bested you, Lottie Tomlinson’. It was the exact eighteen and a half month anniversary of his move into a dreary, run-down apartment in the outskirts of the city, and he considered this in the splendour of his unmade, unchanged, slightly grimy bed-sheets. He was beat-up, heartbroken, friendless and depressed, but he was in his apartment with a hole in the wall and a crack in the sink; a little apartment with no central heating and floorboards that creaked in the winter.

He had brought his camera and a couple of sweatshirts and skinny jeans but nothing else – he had left his laptop and his phone and his books and his life back in Doncaster, determined to make it on his own. And for a long time, that was okay, because it was all new and exciting and he was actually _doing_ this - he was striking out for himself with no mother there to tell him to be careful, no teachers to belittle him and make him feel unimportant, nobody to question his burgeoning sexuality. And when it was decidedly less okay and the creeping feelings of loneliness had settled over the peeling wallpaper there had been Harry, hadn’t there - Harry with his green eyes and his dimples and his knowledge of indie artists and love of the city, his unending optimism muddied by unwarranted trust.

Before Harry - which seemed, to Louis, like an age; a recreation of BC, if you will – the air in Paris hadn’t tasted much different to him. The rain fell the same. The sun and moon shone at day and night and never met. But Harry felt something there; he felt the French accents in the breeze and tasted the kisses on his lips like the feel of Louis’ own. He wondered whether the sun and moon had ever met in the past and fell hopelessly in love, and whether they die every day now so that the other can live (he wondered if they were the inspiration for Romeo and Juliet).

Harry had learnt not to wince at the sound of raised voices here. He loved the taste of the fruit in the markets and the cheese on the stalls, and he loved cooking, for what he said was the first time in his life, despite the fact that he had to do it on Louis’ old rusted stove that went on fire every single night. He was _happy_ here, for God’s sake – happy before Louis came in unceremoniously and ruined everything he’d craved so desperately within a matter of hours.

BH, Louis wrote a lot, and after him as well (he used the excuse that the city inspired him, but he knew that Harry was his muse. The other boy might’ve known too). He remembered the crinkle in his forehead that Harry used to tease him about, could picture the blue ink splotches on the duvets they would sleep against, and could recall with almost painful ease how he had desired a thesaurus. Harry had bought him it for Christmas, the first Christmas they ever shared, and Louis had unwrapped it moments before their first big fight.

He wished somewhere, in his messed, alcoholic mind, that it was harder to remember how it had all began six months ago on what had seemed like an ordinary day. By anybody’s standards, it might’ve been; meeting a boy whilst he worked in the florist’s several streets away wasn’t a monumentus occasion. In fact, it occurred quite frequently. But the simple fact that it was _Harry_ made it so, made it that Louis imagined movie trailers playing in his mind each time he thought of it. If he could bring himself to get off the bed and grab a pen, he might’ve even written a book or a soliloquy describing the beauty of Harry’s features, yet, unfortunately, that motivation was lost on him now.

Louis Tomlinson could do nothing but lie, still staring at the cracked, haphazardly painted ceiling with damp in the corners, and think about how Paris was kind of a shitty place to be at that moment in time.

*

It was 3.08pm in the afternoon, and Louis was already royally done with the world.

The man in front of him was broad, greying and slightly foreboding. He was squinting at Louis and speaking in rapid French, flinging his arms around, narrowly missing a vase of daffodils that sat on the end of the counter. Louis was trying to understand what he was asking for, what he had been asking for the past half an hour, and almost had the idea to phone his mother to beg for assistance. She was, after all, the one who named one of her daughters after a flower - she must know something about the symbols of petals and what bouquet was best to give to a man desperately trying to reconcile with his girlfriend (or something along those lines).

Unfortunately, he, Louis, did not, and so he was pretty sure when he thrust lavenders at the man with a rushed, “Pardon, monsieur” he was telling the woman of which the man spoke of that she was not to be trusted, or something of the sort. He wasn’t sure. He’d never listened during the induction.

“Etes-vous sûr que ce sera la récupérer?” the man asked. Louis, having only a crude understanding of the language from accidentally listening during French classes, looked at him with mild amusement overshadowing his confusion.

“Sure, sure,” he said, and then, remembering he was in Paris, “Oui,oui.”

That was about as France as he got to be honest.

Monsieur DuPont, as he signed on the receipt, scrutinised Louis as if he had never before seen something so idiotic, and obviously considered tutoring him in some vague style before deciding better of it. “Erm...”he muttered. “Je vous remercie beaucoup, vous Englishman stupide.”

Louis was too busy focusing on the ‘beaucoup’ – that meant good, right? – to ponder on the insult until the man was safely out of the corner shop. “Just as well,” the humiliated boy mumbled, sinking behind the counter with flaming red cheeks. “He wasn’t ready to face me. Good he ran, really...”

He paused, inspecting the empty store. “Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness,” he imitated his mother, knowing that would be exactly her words if she could see him now.

Oh, if only Johannah could see him now.

He’d spent the past six months bumbling idiotically around the city. The first four weeks had been taken up almost entirely by sight-seeing and reducing the wad of notes in his pocket to a few meagre coins he scraped off the bottom of a wishing fountain (it wasn’t considered stealing if it was on public land, right?). Louis had long resigned himself to the fact that Paris wasn’t exactly the wonderland he had expected it to be, and that even in the City of Light and Love he was going to have to procure a job in order to keep living in it.

It was an accident, really, that he bumped into the owner of the corner/flower ship on his way home from yet another failed interview. She’d taken pity upon his unshaven, pathetic appearance and offered him a position if he could, “how you say... clean up a little?” He’d spent the remainder of the Euros in his pocket buying razors and a couple of shirts, and he’d been working in Flora’s since then, baby-faced and relatively well dressed.

French people seemed to be fonder of flowers than any Englishman Louis had ever met. There was a steady trickle of customers throughout the day, mostly only buying milk and flowers, meaning that despite his best intentions Louis never really got the chance to doze off behind the counter or take advantage of the stem cutters to give himself a hair trim. It kept life interesting (as interesting as working in a glorified convenience store could be, anyways) and provided a sense of responsibility, something that his teachers had always said he lacked. The joke was on them now. They were living in dreary Doncaster, surrounded by grey skies and cloudy days, boring people and dull paperwork, whereas Louis’ time was taken up by colourful flowers and Eiffel Tower tickets that littered his kitchen floor.

The next customer who came in was seen out of the corner of his eye; brown, curly hair and a long, lanky frame, but he seemed determined to peruse the selection by himself without Louis’ help, allowing the boy to slip out for a moment to smoke on a couple of cigarettes before returning. Even when he did reappear behind the counter it was a few minutes before the boy approached the register holding some limp roses in his careful hands and smiling hesitantly.

Louis noticed, not purposefully, the dark blue that decorated the boy’s right cheekbone. He opened his mouth, not to ask about the bruise but to tell him there was a new shipment of roses that had just came in and would he rather have them, when the boy spoke.

“I walked into a door,” he said, rather hurriedly, clutching onto the stems of the flowers so tightly that his knuckles went white. The thorns must’ve been digging into him, but either he couldn’t feel it or he didn’t care, Louis wasn’t sure which. His voice was deep and purposeful, probably calming if he hadn’t have been so determined to make him believe what was obviously a lie.

He was attractive; there was no denying it, even more so up close. His eyes were grey, green only in some lights, and his lips were full and red, as if he was wearing lipstick. Louis felt his heartbeat increase, felt himself begin to love the job just a little bit more, but was also filled with the irrepressible notion that this boy was burdened with weights far beyond his age and therefore didn’t need him ruining things even more.

“I believe you,” Louis said, because lies are better for the soul sometimes.

He thought back to when Niall had told him that, straight after Louis found out that the boy had been lying when he told a fifteen year old Louis that a guy in his maths class had a crush on him and used the defence that it raised his self esteem. He’d firmly hated the Irish boy for three years after that, always hiding his anger underneath pretences of friendship – because Niall was the only friend he had and he wasn’t so stupid as to ‘break up’ with him – until he realised that it was true. Thinking, no matter how falsely, that the boy found him (even in the minor sense of the word) attractive had filled him with enough self confidence to secure himself his first boyfriend.

So, lies weren’t always bad. And besides, he comforted himself, if he had the chance to befriend this beautiful boy with the preference for pink roses, he swore it would be the last lie he ever told.

The boy breathed out heavily, his shoulders slumping in comfort. “I’m clumsy,” he said as Louis ducked beneath the counter, producing some of the roses from the new shipment.

“I can see that,” Louis responded. “Do you want these ones? They’re less wilted.”

He shook his head defiantly. “I prefer these ones, thank you,” he said timidly, so polite that Louis had to take a moment to consider him before checking out the limp flowers. He wasn’t used to chivalry in France (probably something to do with him not bothering to learn their language before inhabiting their city) and so to be welcomed by some from this... this _wonder_ made him lose his cool for a moment, if he ever had some. “I like the way they’re not perfect.”

Louis raised an eyebrow in his direction as he wrapped the flowers expertly, highly adept at gifting under Flora’s careful instructions. “What’s that about?” he asked. The boy shrugged.

“Just a quirk, I suppose.”

Louis noticed how he kept looking over his shoulder and then down to his phone, as if he was expecting someone. At least, it had to have been that, because what would he have to be afraid of? (His eyes drifted to the purple on the boy’s cheek briefly before moving back to the flowers.)

“These are all ready for you, then,” Louis said with a careful smile. The boy took them from the counter in his slender fingers and then pressed a couple of Euro notes into his slightly clammy hands.

“Do you mind if I get a receipt?” the boy asked. Louis scrunched his eyebrows together.

“This is a corner shop,” he said, motioning to the sign above him. “That’s a two pound bunch of flowers. I don’t really think you need a receipt, to be honest.”

He was being a jackass, and he knew it, but the infuriating thing was that he wasn’t even meaning to. Something about this boy made him want to run through the streets naked, scream from the top of the Eiffel Tower, bungee jump off the Louvre...

“I...” the boy began, stuttering over his words. He was thin underneath the layers of black clothes he wore, and although he was large, larger than Louis, he gave off the aura of fragility, as if he needed to be protected. Louis was never really attracted to that; he preferred men who took control of the situation. But, as he was beginning to find out, clichés were wasted on this boy. Because he was _different_.

God, if Niall was there, he would’ve hit him for being such a dumbass.

“I just really need a receipt,” he repeated. “Or maybe it’s... it’s fine, really.”

“You want a receipt?” Louis said, punching a few buttons on the cash register. “Fine, here you are. I don’t see what the big deal is though. I’m sure your mum or whoever would understand you spending your pocket money on flowers...”

“I’m twenty one years old,” the boy said, looking decidedly affronted. “I don’t have pocket money.”

“Oh,” Louis said sarcastically. “I’m sorry. I just thought from the way you were talking... You’re really pretty.”

Fuck fuck fuck he didn’t mean to say that out loud oh fuck fuck fuck.

It was just one of those things that slipped out unceremoniously, tagged to the end of a sentence to which it had no bearing or relevance. Admittedly, this usually happened when people were drunk, but Louis seemed incapable of shutting his mouth sober also.

It was a curse.

The boy blushed immediately at that, the red of his cheeks almost camouflaging the purple of the bruise. He didn’t seem like he was going to say anything to avert the awkwardness (which, strangely, didn’t seem all that awkward) so Louis cleared his throat, determined to retain his dignity somewhat.

“Like Audrey Hepburn. But with green eyes.”

That didn’t make things any better.

“Thanks,” he said, finally. “I can honestly say I’ve never been told that before.”

“There’s a first time for everything, I guess,” Louis said, wishing that this boy would just leave so that he could crumple into the floor in an embarrassed heap, but yet not wanting him to leave his sight. Fortunately for him – or perhaps, unfortunately – he lingered around the counter, holding onto the wrapped flower, still pink in the face.

Louis shuffled around, scratching the back of his neck. He took the opportunity to take in more of the boy’s appearance; from the smoothness of his long fingers to the vein that was popping out of his arm, from the arch of his back to the taper of his thighs, from the slight curl in his almost-shoulder-length hair to the definition of his jaw. He was ... breathtaking, to say the least.

“Um,” Louis fumbled, rather lamely. “I’m Louis, by the way, and I am a jackass.”

The boy laughed - a beautiful, tinkling sound, but as if he really meant it – and threw his head back. Louis was slightly taken. He had always known he was funny, but he wasn’t _that_ funny. He watched as the boy shook with amusement, his hair rustling as he moved and then, finally, he stopped.

He wiped a tear from the corner of his eye and smiled carelessly at Louis. Louis liked the way he did it. It made the bruise less prominent on his cheekbones when they were twisted into a grin.

“Harry,” he said. He had a slight French accent, but it was laden with something else; perhaps his father was English and had married a local. “I like wilted flowers, and I’ve noticed.”

Louis pulled a pretend offended face, causing Harry to giggle once again. (Have you ever heard a cute boy giggle? It was always life changing, but Harry was an _epiphany_ , for God’s sake.) “Well, Harry,” he said. “What brings you to the City of Love on this cold not-quite-autumn night?”

It was the end of August, which wasn’t Summer nor Autumn. It was the loser of months, really. Everybody hated it.

“I live here,” Harry explained. He was trailing his finger along the petals of the rose, the red reflected in his irises. They weren’t quite green, but they weren’t as common as grey. A dulled emerald covered in dust, ready to be awakened.

(Louis was thinking of metaphors to describe his eyes. Fucking _metaphors_. This boy was going to be trouble, he could feel it.)

“I moved a couple of years ago with my girlfriend, and after we broke up I just decided to,” Harry paused, shrugging. “Stay.”

He said it so simply, as if it had been spur of the moment, and Louis wondered if moving to Paris was as considered a decision as gambling in Vegas. It was the City of Crushing Realities, after all. (Louis hoped Harry hadn’t noticed the change in his expression at the revelation that he was interested in girls; he swore he could feel all of the air rushing out of him as quickly as it had entered.)

“What about you?” Harry asked, looking at Louis as if he really wanted to know. Louis really wanted to tell him too, but he didn’t want to have to stand there in front of a boy that could rival a sunset for its beauty and explain that he didn’t really feel like he _belonged_ in Doncaster. Who did he think he was, anyways, some poor little protagonist of a crappy Hollywood movie?

Unfortunately, Louis couldn’t lie with Harry basically staring into his soul, and so he fumbled over his words in a desperate attempt to make himself seem somewhat interesting and romantic.

“I was getting fucked off back home, and I always had this crazy idea about going to Paris and being a photographer and living just off art and all that shit, so I packed up after graduation and moved out.”

Needless to say, he failed spectacularly.

Harry was still grinning at him though, so much so that Louis began to wonder if he had some spinach or something in his teeth (ridiculous, he hadn’t ate in nearly two days; he’d run out of food in his apartment and didn’t have enough money to buy more).

“But you’re working in a convenience store,” Harry said, not meanly, more like he was stating something obvious like, ‘It’s started raining outside’, ‘Paris is a shit-hole when you’re broke’ or ‘Louis was considering what Harry looked like with his clothes off’. Stuff like that. “What happened to your grand photography dream?”

“I sold my camera a while back to get the deposit for my flat,” Louis admitted. A couple had walked into the store, hand in hand, but they were too consumed in each other to even peruse the selection of bread Flora’s offered. Louis comforted himself that he had at least ten minutes of uninterrupted conversation with the boy before they realised what they had come to the shop for.

“That’s sad,” Harry said, pouting slightly. He was adorable, like a puppy. Louis felt himself melting. “I was going to ask to see some of them. There’s no end to photo opportunities here, it’s gorgeous.”

“It’s all stone and Eiffel Towers,” Louis muttered, almost incoherently. “You run out of things to focus on after about a month.”

Harry grinned at him, a flash appearing in his eye. Louis wondered why such a charismatic guy would have such a welt on his face; he seemed the type to be able to talk himself out of bar fights. Or anything, for that matter.

“Perhaps _you_ have,” he teased. At least, Louis thought he was teasing. Or perhaps it was flirting, but the boy was straight and Paris was stupid. “But _I_ know artists that have lived here their entire lives and never quit painting, or singing, or...”

The door of the store clanged open with a ferocious force, almost knocking old Flora’s favourite wind-chime off its hinges. A man - dark haired and chiselled featured – was standing in the frame, purple circles forming under his eyes almost as you looked at him. It was obvious from the way he moved that he’d been drinking. That and the fact that he held two bottles of beer in his right hand. (A skill, Louis thought. He’d only ever been able to clutch onto one, even at his most miserable.)

“What the hell are you doing in here?” the man said, his voice loud and rumbly; a tornado tearing apart a house from foundations up. He had a thick French accent and long stubble that made his face appear even darker, like a mask. “How long does it take to buy some fucking flowers?”

It only took one look for Louis to realise that the man who made him feel every inch of his skin stand to attention was staring intently at Harry, who had now turned his attention down to his toes (which were pointed inwards, as if he wanted the floor to swallow him whole).

The grin that had been there mere moments ago was nothing but a distant memory. His expression was tired now, his entire body slumped, and suddenly there was no doubt in Louis’ mind where Harry had gotten the bruise.

“I was just asking about something,” Harry muttered, almost incoherently, as if he was the one who was drunk. The man raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t mentioned his name, but Louis had a certain feeling he was called Pierre. Maybe that was just because every Frenchman he came across was stereotypically entitled Pierre, he wasn’t sure. He decided to call him that anyways, because it was better than ‘fucker’.

“And what would that be?” he asked sternly, reminding Louis of his old school principal before his retirement. He used to look at him with a deeply embedded wrinkle in his forehead and disappointment lacing his syllables (always _disappointment_ , never anger, because anger didn’t make Louis want to be better) and tap his pen against the desk. “What are we going to do with you, Mr Tomlinson?” he used to question. As if Louis knew the answer.

He had never spoken a word to his principal – they communicated with his talking and Louis’ nodding – probably because he had a lump in his throat at being reprimanded and couldn’t force a single word past his lips. “I’m going to have to phone your mother again, you know that,” Mr Fredrickson sighed. “We’re going to be on a first name basis if we keep talking this often.” Louis had heard it all before, so he didn’t even bother to nod. It was all pointless anyways; pointless because he was in Doncaster rather than France, pointless because he’d be gone at the end of the year anyways.

The smell of beer hanging off Pierre’s lips drifted behind the counter, and the sight of Harry’s hand shaking microscopically behind the bouquet etched itself into Louis’ heart. The fingers that were in sight of Pierre, however, were stone cold and still, like the foreboding statues of Notre Dame.

He had to help Harry, even if he didn’t know him. He had to prove to him – and, Louis thought, to himself – that he was a good person. He cleared his throat quite loudly so that Pierre turned to look at him with flames in his eyes, as if challenging him to speak. This, of course, just made Louis more determined to do so.

“He was asking me about our new bouquets coming in,” Louis explained, swallowing his distaste. He looked over at Harry, who he expected to back him up, but the boy was still looking at the slightly dusty tiles of the floor. The couple who had came in just before Pierre had disentangled from each other and were watching with curiosity. “He wanted to get you one. As a gift, you know? He just spent ten minutes talking about it.”

Pierre blinked a couple of times before turning to Harry, who had brought himself to finally glance upwards. “Is this true?” he asked, breathing out nosily through his nose. Harry’s eyes flickered over to Louis, who was considering them with a worry line forming on his forehead, and then, timidly, he nodded.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “For our anniversary, you know.”

Everything was coming up Louis, for once. His lie seemed to have been successful, because Pierre’s shoulders slumped slightly, as if he was disappointed, but he was calmer. “Right, right,” he mumbled, less loudly. “Well, that’s nice then, innit? Thanks, baby.”

The way in which he said it was stupidly fond. Harry’s feet detached themselves from the floor and wrapped his arms around Pierre’s thick frame, burying his head into his chest. Pierre placed a hand on the top of his head, stroking his soft, brown curls and the other on the small of his back. Louis watched as his lips moved against Harry’s head, whispering soft, incomprehensible French.

“I got you a rose, too,” Harry mumbled when they moved apart. Pierre smiled at him - handsomely, Louis had to admit – and took it gently from his fingers. The girl who had came in with her boyfriend set down a carton of milk, and Louis checked it out, but all the while he was watching Harry out of the corner of his eye. His initial disappointment at the whole ‘straight’ thing had vanished, because Harry and Pierre were obviously a couple. Now, a deep sense of dread settled in his stomach, mostly at the way in which Pierre changed so quickly within such a short period of time.

“Do you have... how you say... dog food?” the girl asked. She was beautiful, in a Victoria Beckham kind of way, and her boyfriend was as well. He was hovering around the magazine rack, flicking through the pages of Top Gear. Louis took in more of him than the girl (Sophia, her name tag read). He was muscly, but not wide and scary like Pierre, and he had soft stubble on his almost baby like face.

Louis nodded. “It’s just over there,” he muttered, pointing to the end of the shop. Sophia had shifted slightly on her feet, meaning that he could barely see Harry’s head over her’s. “Beside the cat food, yanno?”

“Ah, oui, oui,” Sophia mumbled under her breath. “Liam!” she called out. The boy – Liam – set the magazine back down and went over to her. “Pouvez-vous demander à cet homme d'être un peu plus précis sur ... la nourriture pour chien?”

Liam pursed his lips. “My lady here doesn’t think you’re providing much help, to be honest,” he said to Louis, who cared as much about dog food at that moment as he did the migratory patterns of the endangered song bird. “Hello?”

“Listen, mate,” Louis said, leaning on his elbows so he could see around the expanse of Liam’s shoulders. Pierre’s hand had remained firmly on Harry’s waist, gripping on so tightly that there must’ve been bruises where his fingers touched, and they seemed about ready to leave. “Do you know anything about that boy?” he asked in a hushed voice, so as not to be overheard. Sophia looked at him with careful confusion, and Liam translated.

“Ah, oui,” she said. “C'est Harry Styles. C'est un gentil garçon, j’crois, d'après ce que j'ai vu de lui, mais il a toujours été un peu un jeu d'enfant, si vous voyez ce que je veux dire. Il permet simplement de son partenaire faire ce qu'il veut, même date, d'autres hommes et les femmes! Une terrible honte, vraiment. Paris ne doit pas être contaminé par des gens comme ça.”

“What did she just say?” Louis asked, barely listening. He supposed that he _should’ve_ known, really; she seemed to be making an effort to speak in slow, comprehensible sentences. He was just too busy watching Harry and Pierre leave, Harry only briefly meeting Louis’ eyes as they walked out of the store.

The baby-faced boy groaned, already seemingly irritated by Louis – a new record, he thought – and translated in what seemed to be a very vague way. “Paris should not be tainted by people like that,” Liam said breezily. “His boyfriend’s a bad person, apparently. A cheater, too. Can you please do a favour now and tell me where the damn dog food is?”

Louis would tell him where the dog food was, alright. (But first, he made sure to look around for Flora. Just in case.)

*

Louis must’ve replayed the first day they met fifty five times in his head, wondering if perhaps that was when it all went wrong. Should he have said something different, or held onto him tightly and never let him leave?

When he came back to the store the second time, Harry had an even more cheerful air about him, despite the bruise which had increased in size instead of healing.

It had been two weeks since Louis asked Liam, “Why are you so determined to find it? Are you hungry or something?” and he got decked one in the middle of the store (okay, so that wasn’t all he said, but it was a pretty rocky beginning to a monumental show down, all of which was caught on camera and got him put on Flora’s ‘naughty list’). It had been two weeks and Louis still had a welt on his left cheek, just underneath his slightly swollen eye. Liam had a mean hook, perhaps the best Louis had ever witnessed, and that was saying a lot. Louis got punched quite a few times back in Doncaster.

The air was cool in Paris that Friday night, and Louis was getting ready to pack up. He’d held out hope for the first week that Harry would return, announce that he’d miraculously managed the strength to slap Pierre back and was now desperately in love with Louis, but after ten days of that pathetic imagining he realised that Harry was just one of probably thousands of people being _potentially_ abused in Paris, and also that he was in no position himself to be saving someone, if Harry even _wanted_ to be saved, that is.

There was a knock on the window as Louis restacked the various types of gourmet tomatoes (he had no fucking idea why someone would want gourmet tomatoes. They’re all the same, right?). Had he not have been insanely bored – an emotion that was increasingly becoming his default - and alone – a state in which he spent the majority of his time - in the store, he probably wouldn’t have heard it.

Harry was standing outside dressed in a leopard print t-shirt and a dark black trench-coat, the skinny shape of his legs perfectly accented by the tightness of his trousers. His hair wasn’t long enough to be considered long – it hung just above his shoulders in soft, beautiful ringlets – and it was shining in the moonlight. He was shining too, his mouth twisted up into a gorgeously intoxicating grin, and Louis found himself mirroring the expression as he moved towards the door.

“Well hello there, handsome stranger who likes dead roses,” Louis said, leaning against the window of the shop. Harry stood a mere metre away – so tantalisingly close – with his hands in his pockets, the picture of calm sophistication. To look at him like this, you wouldn’t think that there was anything other than amazing, spontaneous love going on in his life, he looked so content. It was only because Louis knew where to look to see the redness of the bruise which still hadn’t healed underneath a thin layer of what seemed like makeup.

“Hello there, sexy stranger who takes photos of everything except Paris,” Harry responded, his voice a delightful teasing lilt. Louis noticed he had dimples. _Dimples_.

“What are you doing walking the streets at this time?” Louis asked, wondering if Harry could tell that he was finding it hard to keep his voice level and his lips to himself. “Do you not know what happens to pretty boys like you in Parisian back-alleys?”

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” Harry said, suddenly serious. His eyes were wide, like a puppy’s. “You see, I’m like a ninja.”

Louis had to laugh at that. Whilst some tall, skinny people bore the elegance of a swan, Harry didn’t seem to be one of them. He walked with a slight hunch in his back that only added to his perfection and tripped over his own toes as he went. The image of Harry beating up a group of muggers in a darkened street was comedic, to say the least.

“Well, I feel safer with you already then,” Louis said, chewing on the corner of his lip subconsciously. “What brought you here, anyway? Just in the neighbourhood?”

“Something like that,” Harry said. There was brief pause in which all that could be seen was the flicker of the street lights in his pupils. “I wanted to thank you,” he broke through, speaking slowly and surely, as if he was testing out the words before uttering them. Louis opened his mouth to protest – to say that there was no need, Harry deserved to be protected. Or something like that – but Harry cut him off.

“No, really,” he said. “He’s not usually like that, really. Well, he is, but he’s just worried about me, you know?”

“Worried enough to hit you?” Louis whispered, but it was low enough that Harry didn’t hear him or could pretend that he hadn’t. “Listen, Harry, it’s no problem. I’ve seen enough domestics in my day. It’s no biggie.”

“He doesn’t want me leaving him,” Harry explained. Louis wasn’t sure why he was telling him this, but maybe he had nobody else to speak to. Not that it mattered. Louis would listen to him reading the phonebook. “I get a lot of attention, or he says I do anyway, the way I am.”

“The way you are?” Louis asked, scrunching his eyebrows together. Harry was gorgeous, no doubt, but surely Pierre couldn’t expect others not to recognise that?

Harry nodded. “I flirt a lot, like,” he said, sounding sheepish. “I don’t even know I’m doing it half the time. I think I’m just being nice.”

“Harry, being nice doesn’t mean you’re flirting,” Louis said, sighing. “It just means you’re being nice.”

“Yeah, I know, but it isn’t fair to...”

“Don’t say his name!”

He had said it loudly enough that it rattled through the old cobbled street, battering against the shutters on the downstairs windows. Harry looked at him as if he was something dangerous, or wild, like a lost Doberman. Or a raccoon. He suddenly felt embarrassed.

“I’ve just got this weird thing,” Louis muttered, his cheeks flaming. He hadn’t been this stupid since the aforementioned boy in Maths class. “I call your boyfriend Pierre, in my head. Like, when I saw him, I just thought ‘oh, this guy’s a Pierre’. It would be terribly devastating to hear his name was anything else, now that I’ve got so attached to Pierre.”  
It was stupid. Why couldn’t Louis have just said the truth? And what would that have been, exactly? That he didn’t want to know the name of Harry’s tormentor, because he would ultimately not be able to stop himself from reporting him?

Harry considered this for a moment and then pursed his lips. “I guess that makes sense,” he said cautiously, even though it didn’t, not really. “Anyway, that’s why he’s like that. I should probably be getting home, he’ll be back at two or something...”

Louis’ eyes drifted to the watch on Harry’s wrist. He strained his eyes to read it in the dark, cursing his contacts for not giving him the ability to see without light. Finally, he concluded it was just barely eleven, and he’d be damned if he let Harry walk home alone.

“Have you ever been to the Eiffel Tower?” Louis asked as he locked up the store behind him, slipping the keys into his pocket. He was still wearing his uniform, and his clothes were behind the counter, but he knew Flora wouldn’t mind him leaving them for one night.

“Of course,” Harry said, almost automatically. “Who hasn’t?”

“You’d be surprised,” Louis said knowledgeably, although he didn’t know anybody either who lived in Paris and hadn’t visited its main attraction.

“I don’t think it would be opened tonight,” Harry mused, seemingly understanding where Louis had been heading. Of course, Louis thought. The Tower closed at eleven. They’d never make it.

“What about Notre Dame, then?” Louis questioned. “It would be closed too, but we could just... we could look at it.”

“That’s my favourite thing to do,” Harry said, but he didn’t seem like he was teasing. “Look at things.”

He was being sincere. Louis had never met anybody quite like him.

“Alright then,” Louis said, scrunching his nose. “Let’s go to Notre Dame.”

When Harry spoke again, Louis thought it was to say that he couldn’t possibly go somewhere with a boy that wasn’t Pierre, but it wasn’t. “Won’t you need a coat?” Harry asked him, appearing genuinely concerned. Louis shook his head.

“Nah,” he said breezily. “Made of tougher stuff, me.”

Harry smiled softly at him, his features even more perfectly defined against the moonlight. “I can imagine.”

When they arrived at the monument, it had gotten even more dull and cold than it had been outside Flora’s. Louis found himself craving a hot chocolate.

“They’re so beautiful,” Harry mumbled, tucking his hands into the sleeves of his coat. Despite Louis’ reassurances during the journey that he’d be fine, they ended up huddled together, relying only on Harry’s thin fashion coat and their shared body heat. “The statues, I mean.”

“They’re really realistic,” Louis murmured, peering up into the stone, emotionless faces of the gargoyles and maidens. The rest of the city was still and quiet, only a few soft whispers of French dancing through the tranquillity of the night, and the church was bathed in warm, orange lights, allowing you to see the figures in the detail they deserved. “And all different.”

“It’s said they see everything,” Harry said. His covered hand was resting around Louis’ waist, but it was okay, because it was for survival. That was totally excusable. “Every sin, every good deed. Everything you do, you have to answer to the eyes of Notre Dame.”

Louis found himself swaying to the sound of Harry’s voice. It was smooth, melodic, only French on certain words and vowels. It was the kind of acoustic you could fall in love with easily, if you dared to allow yourself to. It was beginning to feel familiar, like his old tattered sweater laying on his bed at home or the scrutinising glare of his sister Lottie.

Lottie would like Harry, Louis thought with a smirk. He was just her type; tall, dark, handsome. Smooth. He was confident enough to take over a small country, and as charismatic as a dictator, yet he was a good man; you could tell from the way that his eyes shined without regret. There was darkness in them, of course, a murky depth in which Louis couldn’t dream of exploring, but wanted to, somehow. It wasn’t his fault. Merely circumstance had erased whatever joy he felt inside.

“If Pierre hit you here,” Louis said. Harry was unlike what was perceived of abuse victims; he didn’t reject the fact that his boyfriend beat him, neither did he stand up for him. He didn’t wince at the sound of his name (or, rather, not-name) but didn’t smile at it either. It was odd, in the lightest of words. “God would have to take care of him.”

“It’s not his fault,” Harry murmured, but he didn’t sound so sure either. “Besides, He doesn’t seem to be doing me many favours, does He? I’d rather trust the statues themselves.”

“Or the police?” Louis said lightly, sitting down on the corner of a large plant pot that doubled as a seat. Harry followed him, taking off his coat, which he lowered down over both of their shoulders. Half of the trench would be enough to fit Louis; he wondered whether he would drown in all of Harry’s clothes. “What about them?”

“They always come late,” Harry muttered, shuffling around on the seat, “If they come at all.”

And that, Louis thought, was the sign of a broken boy.

*

“Call me anytime, day or night, you hear me, if anything happens.”

These were the last words Louis spoke to Harry that night, when they sat down in a nearby café sipping on coffee (Harry) and tea (Louis). Harry didn’t say anything, not even a thank you, but Louis could see it reflected in his eyes, so it was enough. He saw him slide the slip of paper into the side of his shoe as he walked away from the coffee store. A survival technique, he supposed.

Louis wondered briefly as he considered his lack of toothpaste in his bathroom cabinet how many times you would have to see someone to be able to say, surely and without doubt, that you were in love.

He had never seen Harry before that day in Flora’s, but he saw him each workday after that. He only came in to buy bread and milk and stayed for a few minutes at most, but he got to see his smile every day and ensure that he kept an eye on him (not that it was doing much good; Harry kept coming in with marks on his neck and shoulders, visible even through the darkest of clothes. Harry marked easily).

One day, just after he’d said goodbye to his newly acquainted neighbour – a handsome man, with dark features and a skinny frame, he’d offered Louis a cigarette – Harry didn’t just grin at Louis as he passed over the milk or bash his wonderfully long eyelashes in his direction. No, this particular day he actually went so far as to _speak_ to Louis, saying in a slightly cautious sort of tone, “How’s life?”

He almost laughed – yes, laughed – at it, because it was such a stupid question to ask, especially when Harry was standing there wincing as he settled on his hip, which Louis could imagine was battered and scarred. Pierre wasn’t getting better, as Louis was sure Harry convinced himself – it seemed to the older boy that he was becoming increasingly worse.

“It’s alright,” Louis said softly, taking extra time to check out the five items in Harry’s basket. “I talked to my mate Niall for a while last night, on the phone.”

“Oh,” Harry said, smiling, always smiling. “That sounds nice. Is he nice?”

“He’s from Ireland,” Louis said, not quite answering the question. Niall was his best friend, yes, and he was an amazing person, but nice? Not quite. “And my neighbour gave me a cigarette this morning, so I think we’re mates now.”

“What’s his name?” Harry asked. Louis didn’t even stop to consider why he cared.

“Zayn, I think,” Louis responded. The man behind Harry in the line was making a point of tapping his foot against the floor and pointedly checking his watch, but Louis couldn’t give a shit about anything but Harry. “Listen,” he said, when Harry went to take his bag and leave. “How are you doing? Like, really doing?”

Harry swallowed thickly and looked over at Louis. He tried to force a smile onto his face, but it became more of a grimace. “I’m as fine as I’ve ever been,” he mumbled, barely coherent. “Better, actually.”

“Why’s that?”

“I get to see you every day.”

Alarm bells went off in Louis’ mind. He had known, for a while at least, that he had feelings towards Harry. He’d tried to suppress them. After all, Harry was in a relationship (a dysfunctional, probably abusive relationship, but a relationship nevertheless) and Louis wasn’t going to impose upon it. But now, with these words, Louis realised that his feelings were reciprocated. Harry had gone out of his way every day for the past couple of weeks to go to a store far away from his shared flat, simply to see Louis’ face.

“How’s Pierre?”

“He’s at work tonight,” Harry responded immediately, only furthering Louis’ belief that this was what he had been looking forward to the entire time they had spoken. “Probably won’t be home until tomorrow. I told him I was going to visit my mum anyway, so he won’t mind me missing.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” Harry said, but he didn’t sound it. That should’ve been enough – that small flicker of uncertainty – to make Louis back the hell off, to ask Harry to find another corner store and never cross his path again. God knows he’d been a douche-bag the rest of his life, so why couldn’t he bring himself to speak one sharp word to this boy with the green-grey eyes and the messed up hair?

“Do you want to go out with me tonight?” Louis asked, slightly shyly. “After I get off work, of course.”

“Where would we go?” Harry questioned, as if this was the most important thing he could’ve asked. Louis shrugged his shoulders.

“Wherever you want to go.” He repressed the urge to add a ‘baby’ to the end of the sentence, wherever that had come from.

Harry thought for a moment. Now, the man behind him was muttering under his breath in rapid French, so Louis shot him a dirty look. This was enough to make him shut up. Didn’t he understand they were on a great precipice, Louis’ determination to stay out of Harry’s life being chipped away from beneath him?

“We could go to the Louvre,” he suggested. “When do you finish work?”

“Tonight, it’s five,” Louis said. He was lying, but he didn’t think in the circumstances Flora – who was generally an understanding lady – would mind. “And the Louvre sounds good.”

A grin covered Harry’s face, and a feeling of dread settled in Louis’ stomach as he watched him skip out of the store and then stop to pick up his groceries, which had fallen through the bottom of the bag.

 _La Douleur Exquise:_ The heart wrenching pain of wanting someone you can’t have.

*

Back in his old home in Doncaster, Louis’ mother had made a strict rule about keeping conversation neutral, especially when it came to such things as politics or sports teams. There were simply too many opinions to hear and not enough people who cared to listen, and so Louis found himself being confined to thinking of loopholes to this restriction.

“They’re all as bad as each other,” he said one night whilst watching the news as the reporters debated the newest Prime Minister. “That’s being neutral, right?”

“No,” his mother answered sharply, her hair messed up and the bacon in the pan sizzling furiously. “It’s being pessimistic. Eat your broccoli.”

With Harry, he could say anything he wanted, could debate any political opinion, and the boy would be listening intently with dimples in his cheeks, smiling as if Louis was the only person in the world. It was beautiful, perhaps even magical, and it was acceptance, something Louis had been craving for so very long.

The Louvre with its glass pyramid out front and its beautifully muted lighting became a meeting place for the boys when Pierre was out of the city on ‘business’ (which Louis came to understand meant ‘sleeping with prostitutes’). There were more than enough exhibits to discover, which meant that the first six months of their friendship was spent merely investigating every crack and crevice, sneaking selfies with the Mona Lisa and pretending to pick the noses of statues. It went from antics such as these to deep analyses of life and love with the fluidity of a river bend, so much so that Louis found himself admiring every inch of Harry just that little bit more with each passing moment.

“You have to let me pay this time,” Harry protested as Louis passed the twelve Euros over the counter towards Amoux (yes, they were now on a first name basis with the museum employees, all of whom looked at them with raised eyebrows and smirking lips, as if they knew something Harry and Louis did not). “You’re probably broke because of me.”

“Nah,” Louis said flippantly, although an uncomfortable feeling swept through him with the truth of Harry’s statement. He’d had to take on an extra couple hours at Flora’s per week in order to make enough to even keep up with rent, and his power had went off at least three times in the past half year. He’d resorted to mooching cigarettes off Zayn, who was becoming a very patient and trustworthy friend. “I’ve got all I need.” _I’ve got you, in a way._

“You know,” Harry said softly, knowing that to argue any more would result in Louis being annoyed with him for the rest of the trip, “We are such a cliché.”

Louis laughed, a sound that echoed off the sombre expressions of painted faces and annoyed tourists. “What makes you think that?” he asked, his fingers drifting the end of Harry’s long sleeved top.

“The love interest in French movies is always a florist,” he explained, grinning pathetically adorably in Louis’ direction.

“Am I a love interest?” Louis teased, his heart thundering in his chest, and he was so far gone for this boy it was unreal.

Harry’s cheeks went a light crimson. “Well you’re a friend, right?” he muttered. “Same thing.”

“Same thing?” Louis chuckled kindly. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve never kissed a friend.”

They both stopped walking at the same time, their eyes interlocked in a gaze that felt like home. People were pushing past them, but not a soul dared to move in between, even strangers knowing of the boys who spent their lives in the museum. They were becoming something of a local legend, and Louis had heard the whispers on the streets of Paris as he walked past:

“He’s the one in love with Pierre’s partner.”

“Really? How disgraceful.”

“Pierre never deserved that boy though, this one seems so much nicer.”

“He is an Englishman with a French name, why should we trust him?”

Things like that.

“Never?” Harry asked, a slight smirk appearing on his face. He was beautiful, a catalyst, like an explosion of light and energy only emasculated by the void of love’s cruel blow. The purple bruise on his neck, this time not born from violence but something else entirely, stood out plain and mocking in the line of Louis’ gaze. “You’ve _never_ kissed someone who was a friend?”

“I mean, I have,” Louis stuttered. “I kissed Hannah, and Eleanor was a mate too, I suppose...”

Louis had divulged all of his past relationship information to Harry. The boy knew how Louis seemed to be able to mess up every single romantic coexistence he had ever been in, and how now the vast majority of girls who had known him back in Doncaster hated him. He also knew the sad truth that he hadn’t even kissed someone since arriving in France.

Harry was biting on the corner of his lip, leaving little red marks where his teeth moved. As usual, Harry was the masterpiece against the backdrop of less impressive but more expensive art, and Louis found himself captivated by his every colour, his every movement, his every goddamn cell.

“Why haven’t you tried with me then?”

The answer should’ve been simple. It should’ve been ‘you have a boyfriend’ or ‘I don’t want to ruin our friendship’ or another lie like that. It should’ve been so easy to deliver the expected to Harry, who was looking at him as if he held every answer in the world in the palm of his hands. But, for a reason he was yet to be able to explain, Louis found himself gaping at Harry with his mouth partly ajar, completely awestruck at his questioning.

“Um...”

“Never mind,” Harry snapped, furrowing his eyebrows in a way that made Louis think he was chastising himself. “It was stupid. Just forget I asked.”

“Hey,” Louis murmured, catching Harry’s wrist in his hand. Ink snaked against the skin, creating the form of an anchor. Louis’ own tattoo was of a rope, as if even when they were unknown to each other (Louis couldn’t believe that there was a time he was unaware of Harry walking along the Parisian streets, chomping on macaroons from the nearby patisserie) they had coincided. “I pay to see her frown,” he said, motioning towards the famous Mona Lisa. He raised his hand and skimmed his thumb along the softness of Harry’s cheeks. “Not you.”

Harry didn’t wince when he touched him in the way that he did with Pierre, and so Louis could pretend for a brief moment – as he had been for the past six months, now that he thought about it – Harry was full and whole, uninjured and undamaged, just another boy he’d met in Flora’s. It wasn’t a _big_ thing to meet a beautiful boy anyways, right?

“I think I love you, Louis,” Harry whispered, so quietly that Louis had to lean into his plump lips to hear what he was saying. His breath hit the skin on Louis’ neck, making him quiver slightly with anticipation (of what?). “Like, as a friend or something more, I don’t know. But I love you.”

Louis remembered that day with closer proximity than even his own childhood memories. As he lay on his bed, his phone now dancing on the tips of his fingers with Harry’s contact page smiling up at him menacingly, he placed his other hand up to his face and stroked the top of his jaw, just how Harry did when he kissed him, right there, in the middle of the Louvre to the cheering of the passersby. He then thought to himself how pathetic it was to be bestowing affections like this upon himself, even when he could basically taste the sweet cinnamon and regret that tingled Harry’s mouth as he licked inside of it.

“This is so wrong,” Harry had muttered as they stumbled clumsily into Louis’ apartment, the keys jangling in Louis’ shaking hands. He dropped them into the dish beside the door and continued kissing Harry, with increasing passion, enjoying the feel of Harry’s long, slender fingers against his cheeks.

“Does it feel it?” Louis asked, his voice ringing clear through the emptiness of the tiny apartment. Car horns blasted from down below his window, rattling the glass, and because of the single glazing the curtains blew slightly in the cool breeze outside. “Does it feel wrong?”

Harry shook his head, breaking away from Louis for only a moment to glance at his features.

“Why aren’t we kissing right now?” Louis laughed breathlessly. He couldn’t believe this was happening; it felt all like a dream, but it was too real to be a fantasy. He could feel Harry underneath his thin shirt and jeans, could sense his appreciation at the gentle nature of Louis’ kiss, and he knew then that he needed to get him out of his situation, no matter the consequences (he didn’t dare to think he could lose him).

“I’m just reminding myself who I’m with,” Harry replied, blinking slowly so that the low light made his eyelashes cast shadows against his porcelain cheeks. He was like a doll, all thin and pale and classically beautiful, like how Louis imagined fairytale princes to be. “I don’t want to forget.”

Louis nodded, his throat thickening. “Neither do I.”

The next morning, he woke up to nothing but memories of Harry’s arms wrapped around him as he slept and a note that read; “Thought I wouldn’t love you in the light of day, and I was right. I adore you.”

Louis wondered why, if that was true, he was alone, just as he had always been.

*

“Who was that boy, last night?” Zayn asked casually, blowing out smoke from between his parted lips.

They were sitting in Zayn’s apartment now, which was admittedly amazing in comparison to his own and stared out onto a better view than what Louis could even imagine; the Eiffel Tower poked over the landscape of the city, shining in the daylight.

Louis puffed on the cigarette a few times and then snubbed it against the bottom of his shoe. “That’s Harry,” he said simply, not able to stop himself from smiling as he said his name. Fuck, it was like he was a schoolboy with a crush on the cool kid, except this time the cool kid was a messed up boy in Paris with lilted syllables and endless legs.

Zayn laughed. “Yeah, I know it was Harry,” he chuckled. “I used to work with his boyfriend.”

“You did?” Louis said, his eyes widening slightly. “Then why did you ask?”

“I was hoping you’d explain why a taken man was in your apartment all last night,” Zayn explained, looking at Louis with judging brown eyes. They were gorgeous, like a puppy’s, and Louis found himself melting into his new friend’s gaze in the way that he usually had only experienced with Harry.

“Nothing happened,” he said hurriedly, and then, realising that his lips were bleeding for a reason other than chewing them, “Nothing _bad_ happened. It was just a kiss.”

“Really,” Zayn murmured, chewing on the end of a baguette slathered with butter, “Because you’re grinning right now.”

“If you’d kissed Harry Styles, you would be too,” Louis protested. Zayn paused for a second and then nodded, smirking.

“I suppose,” he said. “He’s not really my type though. I prefer more manly men, you know?”

This was the first time Zayn had made apparent his sexuality, but for some reason Louis didn’t find himself being very surprised. “Like Liam?” he teased, poking him in the arm. Zayn was the one blushing now.

Liam – yes, the very Liam who had punched Louis square on in the jaw mere months beforehand – had made a habit of shopping only in the art store Zayn worked at. “He said my work was inspired,” Zayn had divulged wistfully. Louis had to physically stop himself from rolling his eyes, which was only accomplishable because of his increasing affection for the other boy. “He says he’d buy anything I painted, even if it was just a splatter on a page. How amazing is that?”

‘How amazing is that’ soon turned into ‘how amazing is he’ and Louis found himself understanding something which shouldn’t have been as complicated as it was – Zayn was suffering from a childlike crush on Liam goddamn Payne, who was both very straight and very taken. He wasn’t quite sure how to tell his friend kindly that he was barking up the wrong (but very attractive) tree, so he decided in typical Louis fashion to just avoid the situation entirely. It had worked out for him beforehand, after all.

Harry stopped showing up at the Louvre and instead appeared at Louis’ front door whenever he knew he’d be home. The visits got shorter and shorter with each time, and eventually they were so sporadic Louis found himself wondering whether Harry would ever return after all. They kissed each other goodbye and made out on Louis’ fraying sofa, but other than that they acted just the same as they always had; both a blessing and a curse.

Louis peered down at Zayn’s expensive wristwatch, undoubtedly bought with Liam’s money, and saw that it was almost time for Harry’s visit, if he would come at all.

This had also become a routine. Louis spent his time in Zayn’s apartment, stealing from his fridge and pawning his cigarettes to French smokers in bars until such times as Harry called, in which case Zayn’s adoration of Mr Payne had to be ceased for Louis to participate in activities he would ultimately regret in the morning. But this was Harry he was talking about, and he was like vodka for the way that he tasted so amazing at the time but stung like a bitch when he was gone.

Everything was duller and less amazing than when he was right there beside Louis, his fingers drifting over his regretfully clothed torso.

“I better get going,” he said to Zayn, grabbing his – or perhaps it was Harry’s, their clothes were always getting mixed up now – coat and a packet of cigarettes to keep him alive during the wait. “Harry might be coming over tonight.”

He was halfway towards the door when Zayn grabbed onto his arm. “Louis,” he said sincerely, suddenly looking more serious than the other boy had seen him before. He hadn’t shaved in three days – not since Liam made a passing comment about his beard and how it accented his jaw-line – so he looked even darker than usual. “Think about what you’re doing, okay? I don’t want him getting hurt.”

“You barely even know him,” Louis replied, abashed. “I do. And I’m not going to hurt him.”

“I never said _you_ would,” Zayn replied instantaneously. The boys looked at each other for a few moments, the silence so profound that Louis could hear the tick of the clock on Zayn’s wrist. Eventually he snatched his wrist back from Zayn’s tight grasp, perhaps with more strength than was necessary.

“Leave me alone, Zayn, okay,” he demanded. “I know what I’m doing.”

It was true, of course. Louis knew that at any time of the day he could answer his door and be faced with a very angry looking Pierre and a cowering Harry. Zayn knew that he knew that. But now, looking into the brown of his friend’s irises, Louis wondered if _Harry_ was aware of the dangers.

“I know what I’m doing,” Louis repeated again, this time more softly, because he really didn’t like arguing with Zayn. It was like kicking a puppy, or a kitten perhaps, and he wasn’t that much of a douche not to feel remorse. “Trust me.”

Zayn appeared to be still distrustful, but he nodded. “Okay,” he sighed. “I suppose I don’t really have a choice, anyways. Do I?”

“No, you don’t,” Louis said firmly. “This is my life, and I don’t need you nagging me all the time.”

“I would hardly call it nagging.”

“You remind me of my mother, Zayn. That’s never a good thing.”

Louis had spent hours recounting his mother’s various pieces of ‘advice’ to Zayn – most of them ridiculous or just plain stupid – and so when he said this, Zayn knew better than to be offended. A goofy grin covered his handsome face, and Louis smiled back at him before returning to his place down the hall.

The apartment he called home could be considered nice, he supposed, if it weren’t for the hole in the wall, the crack in the sink, the damp on the walls, the sound of rats under the floorboards... Hell, if he had the money Zayn was earning he could make this place into a right little palace and earn a good return if he decided to sell. It was what Niall had suggested on the phone the other night.

“What are you going to do when Paris gets old, Louis?” he had asked. Louis was holding one of Zayn’s old cell phones in between his ear and his shoulder, his hands occupied with getting the perfect shot of the Eiffel Tower. He wondered if that was why Harry refused to go out in public anymore – with the money he saved on outings, he was able to purchase his very own Polaroid, which reminded him distinctly of his old one.

He looked out over the lens, listening to Niall blabber on and on about his options and everybody back in Doncaster that he cared less about than the next passerby, thinking how if Paris got old, there was nowhere else in the world to go.

Louis flopped down on his sofa for only a few seconds before his house phone started ringing. He knew before answering it was one of two people; A) Telemarketers or B) Harry. It was obvious who he was smiling for.

Harry liked cinnamon on his toast. He made the best crepes; even though Louis didn’t exactly help (the stove went on fire at least once a night). He listened to Coldplay and The Fray. They sang out loud to old songs they used to play in discos when they’d just been allowed to drink; they danced around the kitchen to Cascada and Beyoncé and Britney Spears and God, Louis was so in love it was insane.

“Harry,” he exclaimed the second he picked up the receiver. Static filled the other end of the line, crackling away with Louis’ increasing anxiety. It was definitely Harry; he had upgraded to caller ID. “Harry, are you there? Harry?”

“Louis.”

His voice was like butter on a piece of toast, all smooth and delicious. Louis felt flutters in his chest and stomach, as if his every cell came alive with the sound of Harry, with the anticipation that he might be coming to see him. His lips tingled with the taste.

“Harry, are you coming...”

A yell was heard in the background, deep and guttural, sending shivers down Louis’ spine of a different kind. Smashes of what sounded like glasses and mugs against a wall were evident, and he felt a deep seated fear settle inside of him.

“Harry, Harry are you alright?”

“He smelt you on me,” Harry whispered softly. He wasn’t whimpering – Louis had never heard him fall apart, it was slightly disconcerting – and if it was in any other circumstance, Louis might have thought it was a normal conversation, as if those five words weren’t the beginning of the end. “I’m hurting a bit right now, to be honest.”

“Where are you now?” Louis asked, still holding the phone whilst desperately trying to reach his shoes and put them on. “Harry, are you still there?”

“Yeah, sorry,” he muttered. “I’m in the bathroom.”

“Is the door locked?” Louis asked, trying to keep his voice level and hopelessly failing. He wished that Niall – who was coming to visit the very next day – had chosen to get on the plane twenty four hours before. He always knew how to deal with situations like this. Louis was shit. “Harry, talk to me for fuck’s sake.”

“Sorry,” Harry mumbled. He was quieter than he had been the last time, as if he was losing consciousness. Louis had to keep him talking.

“What’s the address?” Louis questioned, even though he already knew. He looked over at the line attaching the phone to the wall. It was already stretched beyond recognition. He couldn’t bring it with him. He’d have to hang up.

“11 Rue de General de Gaulle,” Harry recited, like a poem, his voice trailing like rainclouds over the desert.

“Have you called the police?” Louis reached over to a piece of crumpled paper on his coffee table and pulled the lid off a Sharpie with his teeth, copying down the phone number off the house receiver.

“I told you. They never come. They don’t think boys can...”

There was a pause.

“Be abused?” Louis offered. Harry inhaled sharply.

“Yeah.”

Louis pursed his lips, chewing on the corner of his mouth. “I have to hang up on you, okay? But I’ll phone you back on my mobile and be there soon.”

He was about to press the button when Harry’s voice came through, determined. “Wait, Lou,” he said. “I need to say something.”

“Well hurry up, honey, I need to get to you,” Louis snapped, somewhat meanly. He was slightly freaking out, to be honest, because he was almost sure Harry was losing consciousness and equally unsure of what he would be facing when he arrived at the apartment.

“I phoned you because I wanted to hear your voice.”

Louis scrunched his eyebrows together. “Harry?”

“It makes me feel safe.”

There were a lot of words in the world. There were a lot of different phrases that meant different things in different languages, but not one of them were beautiful nor poignant enough to stand out in Louis’ memory for as long as those five did. With them, Harry had told him exactly what he needed to know; that he’d phoned him that night because he loved him, and he wanted to be with him. He wanted Louis to save him, of that he was certain.

And God, Louis had never been so happy to get beaten to a pulp by an angry Frenchman and dragged away by police for questioning. But it was all worth it, because for every bruise he had received, there was a kiss from Harry when they returned home.

*

“It’s over.”

Niall considered Louis with a raised eyebrow as Louis described exactly why he had been three hours late to pick him up from the airport the next morning.

“Did he ever actually say that, though?” Zayn asked from across the table. He was sipping on some cheap coffee that probably tasted like shit, but he looked exhausted enough not to care. Louis shuffled on his seat, his excitement slightly tarnished by Zayn’s cynical expression.

“Well, not _exactly_ ,” Louis admitted. Zayn glanced over at Niall as if saying, ‘I told you so’ and Louis found himself becoming defensive. “But basically! Why else would he have phoned me other than because he wanted to be with me?”

“Because he was _scared_ , Lou,” Niall said exasperatedly, running a hand through his blond hair. “And from the sounds of it, you’ve been getting closer over the past couple of months. You were probably the only one he knew to call.”

“He said he had a girlfriend in Paris,” Louis clasped at straws. “He could’ve phoned her...”

“Would she have been able to leave her apartment in the middle of the night and go confront his lunatic boyfriend?” Zayn questioned, leaving Louis spluttering. “What would she take him down with? Her pepper spray?”

“Women are just as strong as men,” Louis protested.

“I never doubted that,” Zayn replied instantly. “I’m just saying only a dumbass would go out in Paris in the middle of the night, especially a girl.”

And Zayn, Louis supposed, had a point, but it turned out that Louis was right after all. Five weeks after that day Harry leaned back against Louis’ knees whilst pressing frantically on the buttons of an Xbox controller and he would murmur, “I chose to phone you, you know. I’d never phoned anyone for help before.”

Everything became blurred after that; days whizzing into weeks, weeks twisting into months, months into an eventual year. Zayn mumbled about Liam (“he’s broken up with Sophia now, do you think I could ask him out?” “I don’t think he’s straight, mate.”) and Harry complained about Pierre (“He just doesn’t treat me like you do”) whilst Louis bumbled along in a mess of bills and overdue credit card statements. Because nothing really mattered apart from the fact that he lied to his bank about the expensiveness of his camera and his current employment, and the fact that he got fired from Flora’s because she found him passed out behind the counter after drinking so much there was vodka swimming in his eyes (it wasn’t his fault; he’d just woken up to an empty bed too many mornings in a row and hadn’t stopped thinking that there would be someone there).

And then there was the day in which Harry came, bloody and bruised, to his front door and told him he couldn’t keep seeing him, not when he was in love with Pierre and Louis completely fucking lost it and started screaming at him, saying how this entire thing was pathetic and he was beginning to regret ever even coming to France and how _dare_ Harry act innocent in this whole thing when he was the one who was all beautiful and endearing and who made Louis fall deeper into him than perhaps anybody had ever fallen for anybody before. When the curly haired boy left in tears (probably to go back to his asshole of a boyfriend, where he should never have been in the first place) Louis went into his apartment and deleted every picture that detailed the crevices of Harry’s back or the dimples in his cheeks or the pure gorgeousness of his naked torso and then cried trying to get them back.

Everything fell apart sharply then, just like it always had for Louis, and he had no conceivable way of stopping it.

Two minutes after Louis had thrown his camera against the wall – a bad option, really, considering his financial situation – Zayn poked his head around the front door, all bright eyed and greased hair, his face covered in a wide, sparkling grin. Before he could get any word out other than “Liam”, Louis started ranting, not able to stop the words spewing from his mouth like poisoned gall.

“Just stop right there, Zayn. I don’t have fucking _time_ for your pathetic problems. My entire life is falling apart, my mother hasn’t seen me in nearly two years, I don’t have enough money to phone my asshole sisters, I just basically dumped the one person I truly cared about, my apartment’s a fucking mess, my credit rating is through the roof, I’m going to get put in fucking jail for debt and I am a fucking dumbass cunt who can’t even figure out how to save someone who really, really needs saving. I don’t have _time_ to listen to you whine about a guy –who I must emphasise you have spoken a grand total of five words to – who is straight, probably taken and less likely to fall in love with you than me jumping out of a plane doing jazz hands. Seriously, Zayn. Can’t you stop being a blubbering, wimpy mess for two seconds to look at people who have a hell of a lot more going on in their lives than you and your stupid problems? I’m not your fucking counsellor; I’m barely your friend! So just leave me the hell alone, you _understand_?”

Zayn understood alright.

He never spoke to him again.

*

The birds stopped chirping about an hour later as Louis stared at the one meagre possession he had left besides the crumbling mattress underneath him; a Nokia phone from at least 1998. He looked at the number on the pixellated screen – the one number he had been repeating inside of his mind for the past couple of weeks – and thought about life.  
Life and Harry had become increasingly entwined, and it was pathetic and embarrassing, and he just wanted it to be over. He wanted his life back or he wanted Harry back, he wasn’t sure which.

“I love you, and I’m sorry,” Louis mumbled into the phone, the phone that he hadn’t even worked up the courage to press the button on. “I’m sorry I’m such a twat. I’m sorry that I don’t deserve you. I’m sorry that I’m not there with you. I’m sorry that I’m such a loser. I’m sorry I’m such a bad friend. I’m sorry that I fell in love with you the moment I met you. I’m sorry.”

Harry left Pierre (or rather, Pierre left him for an intensive care unit at a nearby Parisian hospital). Turns out that Louis’ previous assumptions about the boy’s boyfriend were correct. Pierre was involved in a shooting in a back alley and ended up killing one teenage boy and injuring another before getting shot in the head himself.

It was a huge affair that swept the entire city; a city more famed for its sickeningly twisted ‘romantic’ suicides than its murders. And Louis, who hadn’t left his house in at least three weeks and was wondering how long the money his mother deposited in his account before he left would hold out, heard it through the window as his neighbour Maurice shouted it out to her husband in rapid-fire French Louis actually understood from his time with Harry.

He only wished that he had enough motivation to call the boy and make sure he was alright. His mind was whirring with the idea that he might not be; his nightmares were plagued with grotesque versions of Harry’s broken face, of his voice calling out Louis’ name with the quiet reverence of a minister during a church ceremony.

“Come on Louis,” he chastised himself. “You are many things, but you are not a coward.”

Of course, a coward was everything Louis Tomlinson was. The most cowardly of all his characteristics was the fact that he couldn’t even go so far as to admit this to himself.  
Then, quite by accident, Louis’ hand slipped, and he pressed the green call button.

Answering machine. Of course.

Harry’s voice leaked through the line into Louis’ ear, quiet and soft and melodic and everything he remembered, perhaps even more beautiful than it had been before.

“Sorry I am not there to answer your call. Once I get back to England I’ll be sure to send all of my contacts my new number. J’adore.”

He used ‘love’ so easily, Louis found himself wondering if he actually meant anything to Harry at all.

_England. England. England._

There was a brief moment in which Louis had to consider what the word even meant, what it had always meant to him; prison.

_Harry was leaving Paris to go to England._

Why the fuck was Harry goddamn Styles – king of the Louvre and lover of the Seine – leaving the city he was so indebted to and return to London, his birthplace?

_It just wasn’t right. Nothing about this was right._

Louis had to get up. He had to get up, and he had to go and stop Harry, and he might just drop the letter he’d written in apology for Zayn in on the way past (who was now dating Liam, he had heard from Maurice). He would apologise to Zayn, and he would get Harry back, and he might even go out for a pint with Niall in London before returning with his boy to the City of Love, the City of Acceptance, where anybody could kiss and be free to do so.

The Parisians were a beautiful people, but in that second Louis could think of none of them but Harry.

“I’m coming Harry,” he muttered, grabbing his keys from the table they had once kissed against, which was now crumbling into the wall. “I’m coming, and I’m not letting you go this time.”

*

The Charles de Gaulle airport was just as confusing the second time as it had been the first. Louis, when he arrived in Paris all fresh faced and eager about life and love and photography and art, had made a pact to himself that he would never have to return here again; that he could just live his whole life and then some wandering the cobbled streets and picking out patisseries to visit with whoever he decided to be with that day. And then he met Harry, and then Harry messed everything up, and now he was holding a ticket back to London in his sweaty palms and he was dreaming of the taste of smog in the back of his throat and the smell of Harry’s jumper and he knew he was making a bad choice.  
He didn’t care. He’d made a thousand bad decisions if it meant Harry.

He wondered briefly what flight Harry had gotten on. He wondered if he was in a black taxi looking up at some Union Jacks that very moment. He wondered if Harry was thinking of him as the rain splattered on his windshield as much as Louis was pondering over him.

Everybody looked like Harry. Every person that walked by or accidentally brushed against him or even purposefully brushed against him (because Paris was just that kind of place) made his heart stop in his chest and his throat close over with anticipation at seeing him again. But each and every time there came the crashing disappointment that Harry wasn’t there, that he’d actually forced this beautiful boy out of the country he had come to love so desperately.

Louis wondered what appeal Harry even saw in returning. He knew he had a sister here. Her name was Gemma. He knew his mother was here. Her name was Anne. He knew all of his old friends were here, and his old band, and his old girlfriends and boyfriends and his old school. But he thought that was the whole purpose of leaving where you’d grown up; you wanted out of those places, far away from those memories. That feeling had always remained dormant inside of Louis, never truly surfacing unless he was faced with a hurting principal or a disappointed mother looking at him as if saying, “I have five kids, and not one of them is as terrible a person as you”.

He wondered if Harry would even want to return to Paris or if he would shun him on the spot. He didn’t think he’d blame him, to be honest; he’d kind of unleashed several years of pent up aggression and rage and jealousy and love and bitterness all in one spewed moment that he regretted more than anything.

Regret was perhaps the heaviest emotion. It weighed down on his shoulders, sagged in his chest, slowed down every thought with its painful chant of, “You could’ve done this, you could’ve done that, but now you’ve ruined everything and that’s a fact”.

Louis had always prided himself on being a wordsmith. He’d liked writing back in Doncaster, and even more so in Paris, and he often penned stories alongside his pictures in order to provide some meaning to the emotion he felt whilst taking them. But now, he couldn’t think of anything other than Paris and beauty and Harry and love and regret and I’msosorry and I’mreallyreallyhurtingrightnow and I’venevermissedanyonemorethanI’mmissingyourightnow.

That last one was a killer.

He sat down in the terminal, resting his head in his hands and staring at the blank floor in front of him. He hadn’t packed anything; what was there to bring besides his dumbass phone and a packet of cigarettes. Airports were constantly filled with waiters, and not the food kind either. The I-know-something’s-going-to-happen-that’ll-totally-change-me waiters. Or the I’m-deathly-terrified-of-airports waiters. Or the I-love-you-but-I’m-leaving-you waiters. You could always tell the last ones by the tears falling down their cheeks, even in half-hearted sleep.

There was a brief period in which he tried getting some shut eye as well. He detested planes, and sleeping on them made him panicky, and so he decided that he might as well sort that problem out now – the one issue he did have the power to control. Perhaps he was being stupid, but when he was woken by someone tripping over his feet he was insanely irritated.

“Do you fucking mind...” he began, before trailing off.

His eyes moved from the pigeon toed feet, to the ripped knees of the skinny jeans, to the plaid shirt buttoned only half the way, to the swallows inked on skin, to the mess of curly hair he’d came to know so well. And he felt everything and nothing inside of him collapse into a singularity as the boy gave him a lopsided and slightly nervous grin.

“Where are you headed?” the boy asked, his voice deep and delicious. He was speaking as if Louis was a stranger, or perhaps a dangerous force not to be messed with. It was nothing like the warmth he’d experienced before, but Louis could still see it in his eyes. They were sparkling, taking in every inch of Louis’ appearance.

“I was going to see the one I love in London,” Louis responded. “You see, he had an asshole boyfriend who got arrested and I kind of wanted to tell him I was a prick.”

“He already knew,” Harry replied, smirking. “Aren’t you going to ask me where I was going?”

“I was getting there, Styles,” Louis grinned and yes. It felt amazing to be able to smile again, from ear to ear, every millimetre of his face twitched up in delight at the boy in front of him. “Where are you headed, then?”

“Paris,” Harry said simply. “I left someone behind there I really didn’t want to.”

“Maybe we can sit together then,” Louis suggested, patting the seat beside him. “You can tell me the story of your mistake, and I can tell you mine.”

“It might take a while,” Harry warned. “I was kind of oblivious for like... a year.”

“No worries,” Louis murmured. He leaned in closer to Harry as the boy leaned down into the seat, and their lips barely grazed each other before they both pulled away, smiling. “I’ve got plenty of time to listen.”


End file.
